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Getting Started #3 - How to add Categories to your new Directory website

Last Updated: Apr 18, 2017 08:21PM BRT

Hi, this is Marco with eDirectory, and welcome to the getting started video series. In this edition, we’ll cover setting up and managing your categories. Before we get started, a few things to keep in mind:

1) It’s important that you define your categories prior to importing or adding any listings, this way the system will know where to assign the newly created listings.
2) The categories you define for Listings will also apply to the Deals engine for a smoother operation between listing owners and the special deals they share with your community.
3) You have the option to define unique categories for Events, Articles, Classifieds, and BLOG making each of these features on your eDirectory site operate in a tailored fashion for a better user experience.
4) There are 2 ways to add categories, both manually and in bulk, and we’ll cover both.

So let’s get started! The categories will be displayed interactively in two places, on the homepage with the Categories widget allowing users to browse by featured category, links on page, or searched via the search module on the homepage so your users can find what they're looking for quickly and easily. Now, let’s go into the Site manager and take a look, we’ll start by clicking on the content manager, then “Manage Categories”. Let’s cover the manual addition of categories and sub-categories first by clicking “Add Category”.

You’ll add the title of your category here with up to 10 searchable keywords per category, which really helps the system learn more about the relevance of categories and how they relate to your other members within the directory. Just be sure to hit return after each keyword is listed. You can also add an image for your category that will automatically display on the homepage widget, with ideal image sizes for your convenience. You also have the option to make this a “Featured Category” or disable it entirely, once live, if you wish.

When the user selects among the categories listed on your site in the categories widget, or searches by category, this description will appear to give the user a better understanding of the category, as seen on this example website. With the custom content editor you have plenty of options for personalization as well: https://ollocal.com/listing/westchester-county-ny-arts-entertainment

And with the SEO Center here, you can do things like add in a Search Engine Friendly Page Title, page description with keyword-rich content and add meta keywords. What’s great is you can add SEO information per category page to help the search engines better understand and crawl your site, as well as for external search relevance for a more tailored visitor journey

Next, just Save your Category – Once you have an active Category – you can create a subcategory as well – the set up for sub-categories is very similar to the category set up. Now let’s cover adding categories in BULK by clicking “Add Multiple Categories”

Get started adding not only your top-level categories, but your sub-level categories, all the way to 5 sub-levels of categories. You do this as many times as needed, and it can be updated as often as you’d like. Just keep in mind you need to have your categories pre-defined before importing or adding any members, listings, or content.

Ok, well that about wraps up our coverage of adding categories. If you have any questions or need assistance, please submit a support ticket, start a chat on the website, or email Support@eDirectory.com and a member of our success team will be happy to assist you! Thank you for tuning into the Adding Categories video, and I’ll see you in the next one!